Well, we are pretty much done with our first day back to school.  (We still need to read orally and do our piano practice).  It started out pretty rocky.  I actually had 1 in the corner before 9 a.m.  I called my dh at work for a pep talk.  I really, really wanted our first day back to go well.  Julianna is the one who's mood can affect the whole family and day.  She can be quite moody and dramatic.  We have recently been putting her in the corner in the hallway when she really gets worked up.  It seems to be good thing to just seperate her from whatever situation or angst that she is in.  When she has had enough time to bring herself down, we talk.  We are still trying to come up with some other creative ideas. (I blogged recently about working through the book "Creative Correction".)

Anyway, once school got started everything actually went pretty well.  We even have a toddler in the midst that is potty training.  Woo Hoo!  Isabella is taking off in her reading all of a sudden and we are working through her books at her pace.  Julianna's school at home is a little dry I am afraid to say.  But, we have added Spellingtime.com and Bigmathtime.com to help get away from workbooks.  I don't really like to use workbook after workbook anyway.  Boring!  She actually only does school with me on Mon, Fri. and a little on Wed.  She goes to Homelink on Tues. and Thurs. and has piano and gymanstics on Wed.

So, I would say today was a success.  No tears during school is always good.  Now to get to the housework... 

Michell

Wow!  It is 2008.  That means Julianna is almost 8!  I can't believe it.  I rememeber when I was expecting her and my in-laws were going crazy with the whole Y2K preperations.  They even bought us an emergency obstetrics kit.  (We live out in the country about 45 minutes from the hospital.) 

Six years ago, on New Years Day, we found out we were expecting our second daughter Isabella.  We couldn't believe our luck.  It took us 7 months to become pregnant with our first and expected the same when trying for our second.  Nope.  First month of trying and she was on her way to us.  As for our son, (I can't forget to mention him can I) we found out he was on his way in February of 2005.

At the start of this new year it makes me think of how my little ones are all getting older (won't even think of how I will be older too).  I want my kids to have great memories of their childhood.  I want them to remember more good than bad.  I want them to grow up and be close to us and to be our friends.  I feel like we have such an opportunity to be close to them as a homeschool family.  I am trying so hard to do things right and to have patience as we go through this adventure. 

I love you Julianna, Isabella and Chapman.  Happy New Year!

Anyone else read this book?  I own it, have read it and am now reading it again.  Maybe this time I will actually implement some of the ideas. 

Anyway, we have been going through a lot of family trials lately.  Inside our family of five and outside to our extended family.  I guess the struggles with the extended family have led to the stress inside our home.  This has been an interesting holiday season to say the least.  I am sad to see the holidays go, but I am glad the stress with in-laws is over (for now).   My poor husband has been through it that is for sure.  We have been dealing with it for the last 2 years, but it has recenlty come to a head. 

My two girls are your typical sisters.  They love each other and want to play with each other all of the time, but the older is very bossy and persistant, while the younger wants her say.  The two of them fight constantly.  It is becoming very unbearable.  My husband has been under quite alot of stress from the sitiuation with his family and his patience has been short.  I am reading the "Creative Correction" book to see if I can come up with some new strategies for dealing with this.  Sometimes I feel like there is nothing I can do.  My oldest daughter has also been showing some anger that I will not tolerate.  I really want to stop this before to much time goes by.

Ahh.  Raising children is so much fun.  And to think I actually want another one.    My darling husband says "no more", but we will see.

We are really enjoying our Kindergarten curriculum this year.  We started out using Winterpromise I'm Ready to Learn", but it was not quite working for us.  So, I took the I.G. and rewrote it to work for us.  They have some great ideas, but too many of them. 

For Phonics we are using Explode the Code Primers and Alphabet Art.  Each week we learn a new letter.  Day 1 we start a our letter book page.  We glue a small letter in the corner of the page.  Then make our letter out of a pipe cleaner.  We have a "letter clothesline" to hang these on.  Day 2 we do the letter project out of the Alphabet art book.  We glue these into our letter book and also make one extra for our "clothes line".  Day 3 we get out our letter book 1 more time and write words that start with our letter of the week.  We also do our Explode the Code workbooks daily.

For our weekly theme we use Sing!Play!Create!.  Right now our theme is "The Pond".  We have mural that we add to each week.  Week 1 we drew a pond with no animasl.  Each week we study a different animal found at the pond and make one to add to our mural.  We also play games, sing songs, read books, etc. to go with the animal and theme.  Our first theme we completed was "The Farm" and the mural looked so neat when completed.  I will add some pictures as soon as I get them off my camera.

For math, we started using Abeka K, which we did not love.  Right now we are just working on number recognition, counting and beginning adding.  I would like to buy Math-U-See after Christmas.

Anyway, we are having fun!  Isabella is also taking piano lessons (which she is actually doing surprisingly well at) and gymnastics.  I just love this age for school.  It is all fun.

We decided to give Homelink a try  this year.  Homelink is a program through our school district for homeschool familes.  They offer a variety of classes and programs. 

One option is to chose a few "Creative" Classes.  These would be art, music, writing, P.E., etc.  My girls are going to gymnastics this year.  They love it.  And the nice thing is that we get a hefty discount for the classes because we are enrolled through this program.  Another nice thing is that their class is at the same time. 

Classlink is another option.   We decided to give this a try for Julianna.  She gets to go to school 2 days a week and homeschool with mommy 3 days a week.  At classlink they cover writing, grammar, reading, science and history.  She meets with a reading specialist (all the students do) which is great.  She is loving science.  That is one area that we definately lacked in for K and 1st.  They are doing some great history projects as well and will be having a Thanksgiving Feast this week..  She is just loving the friends and social time most of all.  That is something that she really needed.  For me it is a little hard (each week) to drop her off and leave.  Even after 2 months of it, I have a hard time leaving her.  Some how I feel guilty.  Like I am pushing off my responsibility on someone else.  I do help in the class, but on a rotating schedule.  I also meet with her teacher monthly for a one-on-one and also with the other moms.  Overall I think academically she is getting some great help with her reading and writing and having a great time with the other kids.  I think it was a good choice.

Next year we will probably put Isabella in the 1st grade class.  She is in K this year and can't wait to "go to school".  Although she is enjoying her time at home without her sister.  They are together constantly and always play together.  Julianna is definately your typical 1st child.  She is the leader, the speaker and the boss.  Isabella likes to do things her way once in a while though.  Plus, now I get a little bit more time to talk to her.

Today we discovered that our cat Harry was killed.  We are pretty sure that it was a car becuase we found him on the side of the road.  Harry belongs to my oldest dd and she was heart-broken to say the least.  We have been running all day and we didn't see him this morning and I wasn't  too worried because the 2 cats usually take off into our 5 acre field.  But when only 1 cat (Rock Star) showed up for dinner I went out looking for Harry.  Thank goodness the girls stayed inside because there he was across the street.  Poor little guy.    I feel so bad.  Our cats are about 8 -9 months old.  We were concerned because we discovered that they had just begun venturing across the street too.  Our 2 year old ds has actually caught on that something is wrong.  He keeps say "Harry went bye bye?  Went in the road?"  This is the first time we have lost a family pet.

Here's both the girls with their cats.  Harry is on the right and Rock Star is on the left.  They were just these tiny little things when we got them.  It didn't take long for them to grow.  Harry got to be the biggest, fluffiest cat.  Chapman could't hardly pick him up as of recently.    They were both so friendly too.  This last summer Chapman would pack those too around (upsidown at times) and they would just go along for the ride.  Even purring!  Such sweeties.    It's amazing how attached you can become to a little animal.

Sorry so long.  We are still sort of in shock over the whole thing.  Time will heal our broken- hearts.

Michell

9:00 - Noon SCHOOL

1 - Family Time

      Bible Story

      Pray for our day and one another

      Song, game, etc. (W.P. I'm Ready to Learn)

2 - Julianna - Language Arts w/mom (Phonics, Vocabulary, Grammar)

      Isabella - Learning game on the computer     

3 - Julianna - Spelling (computer) and handwriting

      Isabella - Phonics w/mom

4 - 20-30 min. break (mom laundry, kids snack and free play)

5 - Julianna - Math w/mom

      Isabella - Piano

NOON - 1:00 Lunch

1:00 - ?

6 - Julianna - Piano

      Isabella - Math w/mom

7 - Julianna - Classlink homework/assignments

      Isabella -  IRTL Activities

Early Evening

Julianna - Read-aloud 20 min. to mom or dad

*Fridays - Home Ec./cooking

We are really loving our new and improved schedule.  Our afternoons seem to be much more free.  Also, having Julianna's read-aloud time in the evening is getting Daddy more involved in her schooling.  We will press-on and see how things go.

As I said in my last post, we have made some changes to our curricululm.  As much as I love the idea of Winterpromise, it just isn't working for us.  I have taken what was working for us and the parts of their schedule that we liked and put together my own schedule.

Julianna is going to Homelink 2 days a week.  She is doing her history and science there.  They are also working on grammar and writing, reading and math manipulatives 1 day each.  At home we are using the following:

Math - Abeka 2

Phonics - Adventures in Phonics (Don't necessarily love this, but it came with the WP Language arts that we purchased)

Grammar - Write Source

Vocabulary - Wordly Wise

Spelling - Spellingtime.com (Julianna loves this)

Reading - Abeka 2 Readers

Isabella is doing parts of the WP I'm Ready to Learn and Kindergarten Phonics.  We have chosen what we liked best about the 2 programs and put together our own.

Phonics/Reading - Explode the Code, Jump Right Into Reading and Alphabet Art

Math - Abeka K (This is a little too advanced for her so we are slowing down and working mostly on number recognition right now)

Sing! Play! Create! - This is the core for her Kindergarten fun.  Right now we are finishing up our unit on the Farm.  Each week we learn about a new animal with songs, games and crafts.  All 3 of my children are enjoying this.

Now that we are just about 2 months into school, I think we have finally gotten into a routine that is working.  We are also going to add cooking/home ec for the girls on Fridays.  I will post our new schedule soon.  I love the flexibility homeschool allows. 

We started out planning to use Adventures in My Fathers World as our core curriculum for this school year.  The girls were excited to do something "together".  I got a great deal on a used package at the end of last school year, made copies, got everything ready to go, etc.  We had used MFW for K and 1st and it worked well for our family, so Adventures was a natural choice for us.  Since we were planning to combine the two girls I decided to sell our K and 1st materials to pay for the new things we would need.

Then...We went to a homelink meeting to find out what the program would be like and decided that it would be a great thing for our family.  Julianna would go to school 2 days per week (mom would be very involved) and we would homeschool 3 days per week.  The best of both worlds.  Of course History and Science would be covered in full there so I would not need the Adventures materials we were planning on using.  Okay, that's fine.  Now what do I do with Isabella who will be in K and homeschooled exclusively?  I already sold our MFW K materials.  Then I stumble upon Winterpromise.  Wow!  What neat curriculum.  We decided to use the I'm Ready to Learn package with the Kindergarten phonics materials.  All is well.

Here were are mid October.  We like the whole concept of Winterpromise IRTL but we are only using a small portion of it and have added and tweeked the I.G. quite a bit.  It is working, but I MISS MFW.  Ugh!  We are going to continue to use what we have for this year, but now I will probably end up having to rebuy MFW 1st for Isabella to use next year.

Am I the only one who has gotten excited about new ideas and not prayed about it or thought it through.  What a lesson. 

Well here we are October 3rd.  Chapman is 2 today!  My "baby" is 2.  We took down the crib last week because he has been climbing out of it almost every night anyway.  He now has a "big boy" bed.  He is so excited about his new bed and car bedding.  I am sad because he is most likely our last baby.  I was sad to see the crib go.  It will probably never be set-up again.  It brings back all the memories of our first baby.  All the excitement of buying the crib, picking out nursery decor, etc.  I'm not ready to be done with that phase in our life.  All of the stages our children go through are exciting and new in their own way, but there is nothing like a sweet new little baby.  Oh well.  I am a bit sentimental when it comes to my kids.  I guess there is always time to change dads mind on the subject huh?. 

As for Chapman, he loves tractors.  Anythings that from a lawn mower to any construction equipment is a tractor.  We will be having a tractor cake tonight and then we will be going to pumpkin patch on Saturday to ride the tractor out to pumpkins.  Our local pumpkin patch has a great hayride through the woods with pumpkin people set-up as familiar characters from movies, children's stories, and nursery rhymes.  It is about a mile long.  I think we will have a great time. 

Our next adventure in stepping out of babyhood....Potty Training!  I can't wait.

Monday Sept. 10th

We had our first day of school!  The girls were excited to get started from the moment they got up.  I told them that we would make a special breakfast to celebrate.  They ended up with mandarin oranges with whipped cream on top and toast with peanut butter and honey.  Doesn't sound too special, but anything with whipped cream at breakfast time is big deal. 

So I have already realized that we have under estimated the amount of time we would need for our morning block of school time.  10 - 12 came and went sooo quickly.  With an almost 2 year old around, there were alot of interruputions.  This is also Isabella's first year of kindergarten and my first year to officially school two children.  We ended up pushing math out until after lunch as read-alouds and language arts/phonics took 2 hours.  I should have known that.  

The second block of time went fine with math being moved to a new slot.  The girls loved their history and art projects.  We are doing Winterpromise I'm Ready to Learn activities for Isabella and Julianna is joining in with us as she chooses.  She is starting a 2 day a week homelink class in October which will cover her history and science for 2nd grade.  We have been given a fun packet of activities and worksheets to do for the month of September.  She loves it.

So I guess our first day was a success.  Juliannas says she hates to read, but we will work on changing that if possible.  Isabella on the other hand is wanting to learn to read.  I guess those will be some goals for the 2 of them this year.  As for Chapman, he is just here to entertain and cause mischief.   What would we do without him?

Here is a picture of my gang working on an art project together.  This is actually a picture from the end of last school year, but I thought it was a cute memory.  We will officially be starting school next week so I will get some 1st day of school pictures then.  I also have a picture of me the frazzled mom and teacher.  I don't think I need to add that one. 

Michell

Julianna 2nd Grade

Math - Abeka 2

Language Arts - Winterpromise 2nd Grade Language Arts

Reading - Julianna will be reading variety of books of her choice.  We will include suggestions for WP American Story 1.

Spelling - Sequential Spelling 1

Handwriting/Art - Draw, Write, Now

History - Attending a Classlink program 2x a week which will cover History.  We will be supplementing at home with Winterpromise American Story 1

Science - Will cover this at Classlink.  Will be supplementing by joining Isabella's science activities

Isabella Kindergarten

Math - Abeka K

Phonics - Explode the Code primers

Winterpromise I'm Ready to Learn - This will cover science, art, math and phonics

Read-alouds -  We will be reading stories from both WP American Story 1 and WP I'm Ready to Learn

Here is my current plan for our school year.  I'm sure it will change as we go along, but it is always nice to have some kind of plan to keep our day going.

7 a.m - Mom up (Bible, Shower, etc.)

7:30(ish) a.m. - Kids up (cartoons)

8 a.m. - 10 a.m. - Breakfast, clean-up kitchen, kids bath and dressed, tidy up main living areas of house,  start laundry, etc.

10:00 a.m. - Noon  [School Time]

Bible - All

Read-Aloud - Julianna (Isabella and mommy to listen)

Language Arts - Julianna and  Piano - Isabella

Phonics - Isabella and Piano - Julianna

20 Min. Break - Kids free, Mom laundry

Math - Both

Noon - 1 p.m.  [Lunch/Break]

1 p.m - 3 p.m.  [Finish School]

 Winterpromise Ready to Learn - Both

Science or History - Julianna (Actvities from Classlink)

This is my first time setting up a blog.  I am so excited to set up a journal of what we a doing as we go through this adventure called homeschooling and life for that matter.  I want to remember all the fun times we have together during this time in our lives.

I guess I should give an introduction of who we are.  My name is Michell and I am a stay-at-home mom to 3 wonderful, challenging, energetic, unique, determined and dramatic children.  Wow!    Our oldest is Julianna 7 1/2,  2nd is Isabella 5 (Aug. 25th) and  the "baby" is Chapman 22 mo.  I have been married to Giovanni for 10 years this Sept.  He is my best friend and has been for 13.  We met when we were 16 and have been together ever since.  He works hard so that I can stay home with our 3 children.  I am so thankful that God has provided Giovanni a job that has always allowed me to do that.

I guess that is a good introduction for now.  I hope to be able to add more soon. 

Michell